More winemaking! A couple of weeks ago, we went to Erm’s parents house to crush the grapes to make wine. You can read about that here.

The next step was to press the grapes and filter the juice back into the barrels for storage. First up, my father-in-law tapped the keg. This is where the saying comes from!

We also taste it. For quality control. It still tastes a lot like plain grape juice, but you can definitely tell its turning into wine!

Over the past couple of weeks, the juice has been coming out of the grapes, and all the pulp, skins, and stems float to the top.

So when the juice is all done coming out, we turn the keg on its side and pull out that pulpy stuff.

And then it goes into the homemade press, where it gets pressed tightly and even more juice comes out. This juice is more potent. It gets put back in with the first juice.

While the grapes were being pressed, we were busy straining the juice back into the kegs.

And now, 74 gallons of red grape juice is sitting in a keg and getting busy making itself into wine at my in-laws’ house. We won’t see it again until April, when it is ready to come home with us. At that point, we’ll be set for the rest of the year!

Its a bit of work, but just like with the tomato puree that we did in August, its completely worth it to us to know where it comes from, and there’s definitely a sense of pride knowing that we had a hand in making it. Not to mention the Italian traditions that my husband’s family keeps alive by doing this kind of work. Its all good!

that’s so interesting! i LOVE wine and all things related. here in Australia, we’ve toured wine regions in almost every state and talking to the wine makers is always the best part. (well, besides tasting, of course.) what kind of grapes did you use?